How can businesses operate profitably and sustainably while ensuring that they are applying human rights? It is possible to apply human rights while at the same time decreasing cost and making human rights contribute to profits. Yet business efforts alone are insufficient, and states must possess sufficient regulatory power to work together with businesses and investors – not only to improve human rights but also to foster development more broadly. This textbook, the first of its kind, explores all aspects of the links between business operations and human rights. Its twenty-five chapters guide readers systematically through all the particular features of this intersection, integrating legal and business approaches. Thematic sections cover conceptual and regulatory frameworks, remedies and dispute resolution, and practical enforcement tools. Ideal for courses in business, law, policy and international development, the book is also essential reading for managers in large corporations.

In a global economy, multinational companies often operate in jurisdictions where governments are either unable or unwilling to uphold even the basic human rights of their citizens. The expectation that companies respect human rights in their own operations and in their business relationships is now a business reality that corporations need to respond to. Business and Human Rights: From Principles to Practice is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary textbook that addresses these issues. It examines the regulatory framework that grounds the business and human rights debate and highlights the business and legal challenges faced by companies and stakeholders in improving respect for human rights, exploring such topics as: the regulatory framework that grounds the business and human rights debate, challenges faced by companies and stakeholders in improving human rights, industry-specific human rights standards, current mechanisms to hold corporations to account, future challenges for business and human rights. With supporting case studies throughout, this text provides an overview of current themes in the field and guidance on practical implementation, demonstrating that a thorough understanding of the human rights challenges faced by business is now vital in any business context.

Business corporations can and do violate human rights all over the world, and they are often not held to account. Emblematic cases and situations such as the state of the Niger Delta and the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory are examples of corporate human rights abuses which are not adequately prevented and remedied. Business and human rights as a field seeks to enhance the accountability of business – companies and businesspeople – in the human rights area, or, to phrase it differently, to bridge the accountability gap. Bridging the accountability gap is to be understood as both setting standards and holding corporations and businesspeople to account if violations occur. Adopting a legal perspective, this book presents the ways in which this dual undertaking has been and could be further carried out in the future, and evaluates the extent to which the various initiatives in the field bridge the corporate accountability gap. It looks at the historical background of the field of business and human rights, and examines salient periods, events and cases. The book then goes on to explore the relevance of international human rights law and international criminal law for global business. International soft law and policy initiatives which have blossomed in recent years are evaluated along with private modes of regulation. The book also examines how domestic law, especially the domestic law of multinational companies’ home countries, can be used to prevent and redress corporate related human rights violations.

The first of its kind, this comprehensive interdisciplinary textbook in business and human rights coherently incorporates ethical, legal and managerial perspectives. This path-breaking textbook will be a valuable introductory resource for students, instructors and researchers in business, public policy and law schools.

Legal Sources in Business and Human Rights engages with some evolving trends that are currently affecting the international and EU law sources in the field of Business and Human Rights. Three main dynamics are detected and explored: the emergence of international legal obligations that are also binding on corporations (Part I); the growing participation of corporations in traditional international standard-setting and law-making processes and, in parallel, the emergence of atypical and heterogeneous law-making processes (Part II); the formal or substantive hardening of originally soft normative standards, through a multi-layered and multi-player law-making process (Part III). Interestingly, these trends concur to mitigate States’ reluctance to accept binding rules in this field, and to strengthen the effectiveness of soft international regulation.

In General Principles for Business and Human Rights in International Law Ludovica Chiussi Curzi offers a critical analysis of the relevance of general principles of law in the multifaceted business and human rights field.